Origins
by Elthial
Summary: One of the secrets hidden in the depths of Black Mesa, some secrets are not meant to be found............ R&R (at last chapter 6 has arrived)
1. Origins

This is mainly a Half-Life story although it will have a crossover into Resident Evil later and as for Aliens, well we don't know where the Xenomorphs originally came from so I'm going to say they where a native species in Xen. This story is being co-written with Karen35 and the two stories each represent the same story but from the view points of the two different characters, this is also my first fan fic that I've posted so plz be kind when you review.

Disclaimer: I don't own Half–Life or any of the characters you may recognise however Gemini belongs to me. Resident evil and Aliens belong to their respective companies. 

Gemini's story

  
Blackness...warmth.....then........Voices....entering the darkness.....distorted by the liquid surrounding her.....She tired to concentrate on the voices but her mind was a confusing mess of thoughts and ideas half born.....

  
....Images of green fields.... Deserts.... Wastelands......Jungles of steel and concrete going on and on.........and another place.....a place with twin suns......suns in a sky that went on and on in all directions.......islands floating in the sky ....strange yet familiar creatures flying over head......green light.....portals........Ribbed pillars stretching into   
the sky.... as if it was too much to comprehend, she slipped back into the darkness.

There were a number of things she noticed next time she awoke, firstly the liquid surrounding her was gone and its soothing warmth had also gone. In fact, she realised she was *cold*, she groaned and shifted as a second realisation hit her, she hated the cold. Motivated by the cold, she lifted herself off the floor and opened her eyes for the first time. She was hit by a myriad of colours, instincts she never knew she had were instantly in confliction, half of her mind found the images comforting and normal while the other half screamed that something was wrong and that her eyesight should not be like this.

What she saw was a strange world of colours, the floor she was lying on was blue while she herself was reddish in colour, by touching the floor and then her own skin she realised that her vision was showing her heat which radiated from objects and people. She took a moment to look around her, she was in some sort of room, the floor and ceiling were made of the same smooth, cold surface ….metal, a part of her mind supplied….which showed up in a cool blue colour except the area where she had been lying which was warmer than the rest of the floor. There was a door in the room on one the wall and judging by its heat patterns it appeared to be made of metal as well.

With nothing else to do, she decided to see if she could leave the room, so she got up off the floor and headed over to the door, memories this time instructed her to look for a handle of some sort but the door didn't seem to have any. Throwing her weight against the door didn't seem to do anything and neither did pounding on the door, although she did leave some impressive dents in the metal. **'strange'** she thought, the half of her memory which did include door never once had her leaving dents in them and the other half had nothing remotely resembling doors in it.

She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at the door. It was then that she noticed that she was completely naked, again she found that she was of a half mind about this, one side seemed to believe that not being covered up was wrong while her other side had never even heard or conceived of the idea of clothes. She decided that she couldn't care about modesty but it was becoming increasingly unpleasant being cold and that clothes would at least help in that effect. Taking another look around the room showed that the room was completely bare and there was nothing she could use as clothing, so she walked over to the corner of the room opposite to the door and sat down in the corner leaning her back against the two walls.

  
A cell, she was in some sort of cell. Once again that useful half of her mind told her that a cell wasn't the best place to be even the other half of her mind was agitated and didn't like being trapped in an enclosed space, hugging her knees close to her she tried to thing about her situation. She had awoken in a cell with two completely differing sets of memories and instincts yet neither set of memories were her own and she had no way of knowing what to do next. Half of her remembered being human, a tall blonde girl while the other half remembered being an elite, a tall black predator with smooth chitin, vicious claws and a barbed tail. 

She was suddenly hit by the urge to discover what she herself looked like and she looked herself over, along the outside of her lower arms were smooth chitin exoskeleton ridges which merged into human flesh at the edges. Her fingernails were now sharp smooth 3 inch retractable claws and in her mouth she could feel that her canines had become fangs by running her tongue over her teeth and the teeth themselves felt less like enamel and more like metal. Feeling down her back, she felt two pipe like pieces of exoskeleton running along side her spine but what got her attention the most was on the inside of her right arm was a patch of skin that was a different temperature to the surrounding flesh. A mark, a brand.

XH-013

'Great' She thought looking at the brand 'Not only am I locked in a cell, naked but I've also been branded like an animal'. She felt a deep anger being to burn inside her at the indignation of having a number burned into her arm and the desire to kill those responsible for doing this to her started to rise in her mind. 

Another thought came to her by looking at the brand, she didn't have a name and she was going to be damned if she was going to call herself a number. 'I need a name, a name that represents me and my nature…….. my half and half nature……..' she thought carefully. Gemini, the human half of her mind supplied. 

'Gemini….I'm Gemini and not XH-013'

Wrapping her arms around her knees again in an attempt to keep in body heat, Gemini lay her head on top and closed her eyes, drifting off to a dreamless sleep.

********************************

Gemini awoke to find her head pounding and a sickly sweet taste in her mouth, she'd been drugged and moved to another location. At least this time it was warmer, some sort of medical gown covering her as she lay on a medical table with her hands handcuffed together with the handcuff themselves chained to the side of the table. 

'They mustn't want me getting loose' was the first thought entering Gemini's mind as she noticed the handcuffs and the second was that they must have drugged her with some sort of gas to get her here. 

Sitting up she glanced around the room, there were two examination tables one of which she was sitting on at the moment and around the wall were tables holding various scientific equipment. There were three people…. scientists….. in the room, two male and one female, they were at the moment busy discussing something and hadn't noticed her waking up. In various cages built into the walls there were a range of different creatures ranging from native terran animals to native Xen creatures, it was slightly strange to see terran animal in heat signatures when her memories shown them in their true colours.

All her moving about to look around the room must have finally attracted the scientist's attention because they finished their conversation and two of them, one of the male and the other female walked over to her while the other went over to examine some piece of equipment. Gemini turned to watch the two scientists approaching her.

"Look at that" said the male scientist pointing at the outside of her arm "We still have the exoskeleton mutation reappearing even with the new techniques."

The female scientist seemed to look though some notes on her clipboard. "The mutations in this latest subject seem to less pronounced than in previous test subjects" she said looking up from the notes for a second to look at the hybrid in front of her

Gemini cocked her head in thought, there were others before her?, what happened to them and are they still around.

****

' Wouldn't mind meeting more of my kind' she had personally begun to think that human were slow, clumsy, ungraceful creatures with limited senses. 

"Well, hello little XH-013" said the male scientist leaning right up into her face and looking into her eyes, Gemini's eyes narrowed not only at the uses of her number but also the violation of her personal space. Thought of ripping his face off filled her mind and she tried to lunge forward to kill him but the chains on her didn't snap and held her tight.

The scientist being saved from death by a few inches of chains, jumped back startled making a sound somewhere between a squeak and a scream, lost his footing and tumbled down onto the floor. The female scientist was equally shocked and jumped back into the other table although she managed to keep her footing and a sound suspiciously close to sniggering came from the third scientist at the back of the room who had his back turned but obviously saw the whole thing. 

The fallen scientist got up with as much dignity as he could muster and then shot a death glare at the scientist at the back of the lab. "You can be such a child sometimes, Johnson" shot the scientist as he dusted off his lab coat.

By this time, Gemini had calmed down again and was now sitting watching the scientists interact, all the time watching them with hungry eyes as if waiting for one of them to slip up. 

The female scientist was the first to recover and began issuing orders "Right, we need blood and tissue samples from the subject to see if its finally stabilised, … Johnson since you find the situation so amusing you can collect them." And then turning to the scientist that fell she said "Blackwell, you can help me with the computer" and they both walked over to one of the workstations along the walls.

The scientist called Johnson gulped and then mumbled something under his breath about Neapolitan power mongers before grabbing a tray of needles and placing them on the table opposite from Gemini or XH-013 as he knew her.

She watched in amusement as he nervously fiddled with the needles, dropping them quite a few times as he worked up the nerve to approach her.

"Right, I'm just going to take some blood, okay?" He asked as he finally approached her with a needle "Nothing to be afraid about". Gemini stayed perfectly still, allowing him to approach her although she was sure that if she moved the guy would probably wet himself. Dr Johnson swabbed down the area and then stuck the needle in, watching nervously at XH-013 for any sign of movement, so busy was he watching her that he didn't notice the needle which was filling up with blood was melting until some of her blood touched his fingers.

"AH SHIT!!!" Cried Dr Johnson as shook his burned hands and then ran over to the sink to run them under water, his commotion attracted the other two scientists over, who regarded the melted blob that was once a needle with fascination.

"Fascinating, it must have inherited the acid blood from the Xen parent species, XH-009 was the only other test subject to inherit such a low body pH level and even it had problems where the Xen and Terran flesh combined." Said the female scientist in awe, Dr Blackwell was practically bouncing on his heels with excitement while Dr Johnson nursed his injured fingers and glared at XH-013 who at the moment had collapsed in a fit of giggles. 

"Great!" Shouted Dr Johnson "so now not only do we have to get her docile enough to get the blood sample but the problem now is also _how_ to get the blood sample"

Gemini was too busy rolling giggling on her table to pay much attention to anything else going on in the room, it was just too funny. The tiny hole in her arm were the needle had healed instantly and no more blood leaked out but the blood from the needle was now making a crater in the tiled floor of the lab. The scientists were watching the acid burn though the floor with excitement.

"The acid blood has definite applications as a self defence mechanism" Said Dr Blackwell excitedly "Imagine the subject could cause damage to the enemy forces even in death!"

The female scientist suddenly frowned as something came to her. "Yes, while the acid blood has its uses, it will cause complication in our research, blood samples will obviously be impossible to take until we can develop equipment which can survive the acid." The woman bit her lip and then continued "but what concerns me most is that the subjects current cell is unsuitable in light of this new development"

This caught Gemini's attention and she calmed herself down so she could listen to the scientists from her place lying on the examination table. **'What would make the cell unsuitable?, I've already tried to get though that door and it wouldn't budge' **She thought interestedly, if they were going to talk about ways she could escape right in front of her she had no problems listening obviously they thought she was unable to comprehend what they were saying.

Dr Blackwell caught on "You mean it could escape the cell by using its own blood? Do you think its that intelligence?" He asked looking doubtfully over to XH-013. Gemini's eyes narrowed at the insult and she started to glare at the scientist which obviously unnerved him because he looked away from her.

****

'Using my blood to melt through the doors or floor…hmmmmm…… never would have thought of that' Gemini thought considering the possibility of using it as an escape plan, the problem was she knew very little of the outside world and at the moment was better off being a experiment for a group of scientist than trying to escape.

"She seemed to stop giggling when Dr Matthews started talking about her cell being unsuitable" Pointed out Dr Johnson thoughtfully "I know it could be coincidence but I get the feeling it understands everything we say"

"Impossible, she has only been alive outside of that vat for a single day, I doubt that it could possibly have the faintest idea of what is going on around her. Its just functioning on instinct." Scoffed Dr Blackwell

"Don't underestimate her" Warned female know as Dr Matthews "The earlier XH series showed high levels of intelligence and in some cases genetic memory from one of the parent species, it is possible she has these traits"

Dr Blackwell tried to say something but Dr Matthews cut him off "At the moment it doesn't matter, what matters is finding a place to keep her in until we can create a suitable containment cell."

"What about the Bio-domes?, they were used to contain the original Xen parent species for awhile." Suggested Dr Johnson. "We could keep her in there, if the originals couldn't escape then she would stand much chance."

"All the Bio-domes are full with the administrator's other projects" stated Dr Blackwell rejecting the idea straight away.

"No, no" Dr Matthews shook her head " let me check something" and she headed over to a computer workstation and began typing, after seconds she let out a small victory cry. "Yes!, I thought so, the previous XH series are being stored in Bio – dome 04 which means we can put XH – 013 in with them until better arrangement can be made."

"Okay, I'll get some guards so we can take her through the facility" and with that Dr Blackwell walked out of the lab with the intention to get some guards.

****

'Huh, walk?, their not going to drug me again?' Thought Gemini surprised but then again she didn't know what the rest of the facility was like and therefore wouldn't risk escaping because she was beginning to enjoy being alive. The concept of getting shot by a group of guards seemed generally unappealing. 

Dr Blackwell returned a few minutes later with a group of 12 guards armed with pistols and rifles, Dr Matthews came up to Gemini and gave her a hard look. "If you can understand us, I wouldn't suggest trying to escape because the guards have been instructed to shoot you if you try anything"

"Talking to an animal" Dr Blackwell reminded her, Gemini was really beginning to dislike that guy.

Dr Matthews unchained Gemini from the desk, Gemini for her part remained lying down on the table then once she was unchained slowly sat up as not to startle anyone before she slide off the table onto the cold floor.. She had to look up to all the guards and scientist because she was much shorter than them, one of the guards chuckled in amusement, which she just ignored. 

"How tall is she anyway?" Asked the guard, having a rough idea of her height but wanting confirmation.

"Its 4 foot 10 inches" Answered Dr Blackwell in an off handed way. 

"Kinda small isn't it" Asked the same guard again.

"Small but deadly" Said Dr Matthews sternly "All the more reason for you to shut up get moving before something unpleasant happens." And with that the entire group walked out of the lab with all the guns pointed towards XH – 013, just waiting for it to try and escape which wasn't going to happen but no sense in not being prepared.

The group walked down a cold metal corridor which had other door ways and corridors leading off it until they reached an elevator, after waiting for the elevator to arrive they all boarded into the elevator which was big enough to fit a small tank inside. The elevator seemed to descend for ages and Gemini was being to become bored enough to entertaining the idea of just killing everyone when the elevator began to slow down. The doors pinged and opened to reveal another metal corridor that seemed to stretch on forever, fortunately the group didn't have to walk down that corridor and they turned into the first door way to the right. Inside appeared to be another lab similar to the other one except this one had no examination tables and only one computer, what made it different was a warm heated solid metal door in the middle of one of the walls.

Dr Matthews walked over to a panel besides the door and swiped her card. The panel made a beeping sound and Dr Matthews swore under her breath and tried again, once again the panel happily rejected her card.

"Stupid thing" She mumbled. "Johnson see if your card works" she ordered. 

Johnson went over to the panel and swiped his card, the door open immediately going up into the roof, revealing a small lift that when down about 10 ft, Dr Johnson gestured to one of the guards whom gently pushed XH-013 as they knew her, forward into the room. 

"Welcome to your new home" muttered Dr Johnson before swiping his card again, the large metal door closed behind her, leaving her in a tiny room which seemed to have a door on the other side about 10 ft below her judging by the heat patterns. The floor below her feet suddenly moved, going downwards and it took her a second to realise that it was the lift lowering her to the other floor. Once the floor stopped moving the door in front her opened but unlike the previous door it didn't go into the roof but instead it opened outwards like it was attached to the ceiling by hinges. 

She walked cautiously into the area once she got past the door it began to close behind her, the front of the door being unrecognisable form the rest of the fake rock face it was built into, she looked around the room. It was a large observation quarter dome, there were three different levels where people could observe what ever was in the room, the room itself was based on a terran environment which had grass, brushes and trees but she couldn't see any other animals in the environment. From listening to the scientists, she knew that others of her kind where in the dome but she couldn't see any of them from where she was, so she wandered deeper into the dome. She walked into a deep forested area when she heard the snap of a twig behind her but before she could turn around she was tackled from behind. 

Authors note: Okay I just beta'd this, it wasn't too bad before but I fixed the few mistakes.


	2. Friends and Family

AN: This has now been beta'd

Something slammed into Gemini with, if she'd be human, bone shattering force, sending them both flying through the air until they both landed awkwardly and began rolling down a hill inside the Bio-dome. They came to a stop at the bottom of the hill with Gemini finding herself firmly pinned beneath another body with strength equal if not greater than her own. Gemini looked up to find a large girl a top of her pinning her down with her arms, arms which had the same ridges on them as Gemini except that they spread further and covered most of her arms. Looking the girl over Gemini also noticed another thing, girl had a tail made out of the same chitin exoskeleton looking rather like a scorpions tail swaying from side to side behind her. 

****

**Hiya** The thought came across from the other female hybrid cheerfully looking down at her, her long hair falling around her face covering most of it. Gemini frowned at the other girls cheerfulness, she herself wasn't in the best of spirits after being tackled, so pushed the other girl off of her and rolled to her feet with a single graceful move that humans simply couldn't do. The other girl sat up on her haunches with her tail sticking out behind her to counterbalance her weight and cocked her head curiously at the Gemini, watching, observing and considering her.

****

**So they made another one?** The girl asked her telepathic voice having an strange underlying metallic ring to it.

Gemini nodded, it was obvious they had made another otherwise she wouldn't be here and licking her lips, tried to asked a question of her own using telepathy. ****Who are you?****

The girl paused to consider the question and for a while Gemini thought she hadn't done it correctly then the other girl offered her right arm out show the brand XH-11 in her flesh on the inside of her arm. ****They say my names this**** she replied referring to the brand on her arm.

Gemini frowned again ****That's not a name****

XH-11 dropped to all fours and prowled around Gemini, circling her and looking all the world like a black panther with the black fatigues she was wearing and her chitin arms and tail, the sight seeming both perfectly natural and alien in a fairly disturbing kind of way. Then pausing about three quarters the way around Gemini she looked up at her and asked: ****And what would be your name then?****

****

**Gemini** Replied Gemini without any hesitation

****

**hmmm….. the others call me Aya** Replied Aya after musing on Gemini's name

****

'Others?' Thought Gemini with interest

****

**Sure, I'll take you to them** Responded Aya to Gemini's thought as a question even though she hadn't meant it as one. Aya quickly disappeared into the foliage of the Bio-dome leaving Gemini struggling to catch up as Aya covered the ground quickly on all fours, weaving in and out, up and over tree branches and bushes. They continued until they came up the fake cliff faces that covered the other side of the bio-dome. 

In a small group at the bottom were a group of 3 other hybrids, all female and they all had tails but there were obvious differences between them. A taller one laying on top of a boulder had chitin exoskeleton pipes sticking out of her back and most of her back was chitin which merged into human flesh at her sides, she was the least human of the group although you could still see the human in her. The other two were rolling around on the floor play fighting, trying to pin one another down but stopped the instant they noticed someone approaching and tensed as if to fight but relaxed slightly when they saw Aya although still seeming warily about a stranger in their domain.

****

'Fair enough' Thought Gemini **'I wouldn't totally trust a stranger either'** This time she managed to keep her thoughts to herself **'Heh…. Getting the hang of this mind speak'**

****

**Aya?** They questioned in unison, the thought being broadcasted widely and both cocked their heads to the side in unison, obviously wondering who was the stranger with Aya. It was actually kinda cute……. if you could call any of her kind cute. 

By looking at them Gemini could tell that they were twins, they were exactly the same height, had similar markings to one another and seemed totally identical. **'I dread to think how I'm going to tell them apart' **thought Gemini.

****

**Tia, Mia this is Gemini** Aya introduced them using her telepathy on a wide band as she stood back up on her hind legs, the twins seemed curious towards Gemini but keep their distance, it was then that Gemini took in the size of everyone around her. Aya was much taller than her, maybe about 5 ft 6 inches while as the twins where the same height as Gemini coming in at 4 ft 10 inches but she couldn't tell the height of the other hybrid lying down.

****

**Gemini** Aya was now addressing her ****These are the twins Tia…**** Aya mentally projects an image of one on the right ****…and Mia**** Then an image of the twin on the left. The twins somehow sensing their being talked about both nodded at Gemini in unison.

****

'Do they always do that?' Gemini wondered

The twins were now curiously looking behind her, noticing her lack of tail. ****What happened to you tail?**** The thought laced with curiosity came from Mia.

****

**Never had one** Gemini replied to Mia's question

****

**I don't know what I'd do without my tail** Thought Tia to everyone, holding and almost hugging her tail in her arms before letting it go and having a few practise swipes with it. The tails themselves where almost purely chitin exoskeleton and had a blade or barb on the end which looked vicious, so on the whole weren't the most cuddly thing in existence.

Remembering the numbers branded into their skin Gemini asked ****Which numbers are you?**** at the blank, confused thoughts sent back, she mentally prompted **** …the numbers on the inside of your arms****, to which Gemini ended up with a pair of upturned arms which had the numbers XH-10a branded on Tia's arm and XH-10b on Mia's arms.

Then the twins as if one became bored with the conversation, immediately went off running and squealing playing a game that obviously involved a lot of tackling.

Which left Gemini wondering how short their attention spans were. This thought was reward with a thought giggle from a source she didn't recognise but obviously Aya did, as her mind radiated amusement.

****

**That's Naomi, she's the eldest of us** Aya answered amusedly to Gemini's confusion about who had giggled and point up at the other hybrid on the rock.

Naomi herself was caught between amusement and indignation. ****Thank you very much Aya but I'm only 4 months older than you** **Naomi thought towards the two, before hoping down from her rock and landing on all fours before straightening up in front of Gemini but not actually looking at her** **So you're the new one they made, huh?****

Aya as if by some unspoken cue generally transmitted an image of Gemini presumably to Naomi, one thing that caught Gemini's attention was that the image wasn't in her Heat vision but instead in the normal human eye sight of being able to see colours. Gemini took a second to marvel at how different the world looks though a different pair of eyes. 

Then Gemini sensed that Naomi was sensing her amazement with an almost sad longing, when Gemini send the telepathic equivalent of a question mark Naomi replied ****The only way I get to see the world is though other peoples eyes**** Naomi sighed ****Which means rarely…. The human's have a saying "a picture is worth a thousand words" …well in our case a picture is a thousand words… its that much harder to send****

Gemini suffered brief confusion on Naomi's words until she realised that Naomi was actually blind… which probably explained the not look at her when talking. Naomi following Gemini's train of thought and replied 

****

**I'm XH-09 one of the earlier experiments that actually survived however I am not with out my faults, none of us are which is why they keep making new ones in an attempt to improve, make us more like them just stronger more powerful.** 

It was Aya which spoke up first** **She's our leader, just because she's blind doesn't mean that she's any weaker with the higher amount of… what was it the humans call it?… ah yes Xeno DNA she's got sharper senses and stronger muscles than all of us.** **Aya's thoughts radiated sudden amusement** ** She could always beat me… still can****

Gemini nodded at this, you could see the extra chitin and pipes along Naomi's body, she actually looked more alien than human then it was no wonder she was more powerful.

************

Gemini spent the next week with her family just messing about and getting to know everyone, the scientist were taking their time in constructed a new containment room, not that Gemini was complaining. A lot of the time she spent by play with the twins which despite being older than Gemini seemed to have a very child like attitude to the world. When Gemini questioned Naomi about this she was told it was because the genetic memory wasn't as stronger with the twins leaving them literately younger minded, not that it matters as she wouldn't wish them to be any different.

Naomi herself spend most of the time resting and sleeping probably due to her faulty metabolism and Aya was always stalking around, patrolling around the Bio-Dome continuously despite the fact nothing could enter without them sensing it. That was another thing that had happened, Gemini had become accustomed to the others mind and could feel them just on the end of her consciousness all the time which itself was a great comfort. It was during one of Aya's little patrols that Gemini had decided to join in on that a sickly sweet smell begin to pour into the dome, Gas Gemini thought as she fell into unconsciousness.

************

XH-013 AKA Gemini sat on the edge of a cold metal examination table with her hand handcuffed together and the handcuffs chained to the table. She was wearing new clean medical gown, which provided her some warmth in the air-conditioned medical lab, the old one had became stained from her time messing around in the Bio-dome, she personally blamed the twins and their secret love of tackling people. The room she was in had two doors in it and at each one there were two guards posted with machine guns. **'Hmmm… escaping wouldn't be much fun' **Gemini thought

The room she was in appeared to be some sort of medical examination room and had two examination tables in it, on the other table sat a girl, she had a resigned air around her as scientist took blood samples, poked and prodded her. 

Scientist's that she didn't recognise hurried around the room, taking data from both her and the girl sitting on the examination table and then inputting that data into the scientific equipment that lined the room. Well that's what Gemini assumed they were doing, with her eye sight she could tell what was on the monitors and they could have been secretly playing Pong for all she knew… She doubted it but you never knew with these scientist types.

Gemini watched the scientists with a detached eye as she sat on the edge of her table before deciding they where boring and turning her attention to the girl sitting on the other table. Unlike herself the girl didn't appear to be handcuffed or chained in anyway and was just sitting docilely on the table of her own free will apparently. 

Gemini guessed she was probably about 15 years old with shoulder length hair and was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, Gemini then paused and mentally thanked her human half of her mind for all these little tidbits of information. The one thing that attracted XH-013 attention about this girl was that her skin temperature was higher than it should be, it was like she had a fever yet didn't appear to have any other symptoms and wasn't acting like she was sick.

Gemini was musing over the puzzle of this strange girl when Dr's Matthew's, Johnson and Blackwell came into the room, followed by a third man who was tall, well muscled and seemed to have the same too high skin temperature as the girl. The scientists were currently talking to him as they walked into the room.

"Dr Wesker the preliminary test we ran on the girl suggest that the genetic mutations you were worried about will not be a factor in the transformation and that it should proceed with only minimum mutations….." Dr Matthew's rambled on, Gemini toned her out as she noticed both this Dr Wesker and the girl seem to relax at the news.. 

****

'Well even I'd be worried if I thought I was going to start mutating' Gemini thought as she wondered exactly who this girl was but was knocked out of her train of thought as Dr Johnson and Dr Blackwell began fighting.

"No! Absolutely not! I'm not going to be the one to take a blood sample this time!" yelled Dr Johnson waving his arms about gesturing causing Gemini to grin in memory. The other girl just looked curiously from Gemini to the shouting doctor with obviously no idea what was going on.

Dr Blackwell looked at him with a patient expression "It was only a little acid…."

"Only a LITTLE! Look at that!" Dr Johnson ranted shoving his hand in Blackwell's face "That's going to leave me with scars for the rest of my life"

Dr Blackwell rolled his eyes "Fine then, I'll take the blood sample but you can be the one to run it down to the lab"

"I'm not carrying a test tube of that things blood down the corridors I'm telling you now!" Dr Johnson retorted thinking about the acid spilling.

Dr Blackwell got a pained look on his face and rubbed his face "Then take a containment box"

Dr Johnson opened his mouth to retort then stopped and muttered an "Oh…." Before wandering off. 

Dr Blackwell came up to Gemini, slightly nervous she could tell from his scent although he didn't show it and stuck the needle in her and taking blood sample, this time the needle didn't melt or fall apart making Gemini pout with disappointment.

Dr Blackwell noticed Gemini's pout and stared suspiciously at her before walking away to give Dr Johnson the blood sample and then went over to the other side of the lab to do some sort experiment.

Everyone was now on the far side of the room and paying no attention to them, so Gemini decided to have another look at the girl and caught the girl staring. The strange not sick girl averted her eyes but every now and again would glance back curiously at Gemini until after a few minutes when she worked up the courage to speak.

"Who are you?" she asked quietly looking at Gemini "Can you talk?".

Gemini glanced over at the scientists, who where still to busy in their discussions or experiments and decided its was safe enough to answer. "Gemini" replying quietly so the scientists wouldn't overhear the conversation, she'd rather have them underestimate her capabilities and believe she and her siblings couldn't understand them.

"Oh… I'm Birkin, Sherry Birkin." The girl, Sherry replied after a moment of thought. "Where were you…… I mean…. Where do you come from?" she asked curiously staring at the chitin ridges on Gemini's arms.

Gemini smirked with irony "here". It was all an answer required as Sherry fell silent again obviously thinking it over as she did so she rubbed at a spot on the inside of her arm and when Gemini looked, to her surprise she noticed Sherry had also brand on the inside of her arm. It wasn't the same brand as on Gemini or her sisters arms, the numbers where T – 045 and it had a image next to it which looked vaguely like something in Gemini's memories………. Ah yes, a DNA helix… that was it. It was an image of a DNA double helix on her arm.

Now it was Gemini's turn to be curious as she nodded towards the mark on Sherry's arm and asked in a low voice not more than a whisper "What's the brand for?" 

Sherry looks at Gemini, as if deciding she can trust her, she decides they are both more or less in the same boat and so replies saying "My father… He changed me before I was born… he erm….. Genetically engineered me with the T-virus…. Meaning I'm turning into a Tyrant"

Gemini raised an eyebrow "Tyrant?"

Sherry licked her lips before continuing "A super soldier created by the T-virus" she stopped to look over Gemini before asking across in a low voice "So what's your story?"

"I'm some sort of hybrid between humans and an alien species…… I can remember stuff from my human side which is strange but…. Useful"

Gemini paused.

"look don't tell anyone I can talk or understand them okay?" Gemini asked in a slightly hard tone.

Sherry looked up shocked "why?"

Gemini rolled her eyes "Because I want them to underestimate me and it'll… Shhhhh" She cut of when Dr Wesker and Dr Matthews broke off their conversation and gave Sherry a quick glance implying painful things if she said anything, judging my Sherry's gulp Gemini guessed she understood.

"Yes well that's hopefully what the administrator will think too…. Hello Sherry" Said Dr Matthews as she reached the two medical examination tables they where Sherry an Gemini were both sitting on.

Sherry ignored Dr Matthews and looked up at Wesker as if asking what was going on.

"We'll be staying here for a while….I'll tell you later come on" Said Wesker indicating she was to follow him and began to headed out of the door. Sherry hopped off the table and followed him out of the room, giving Gemini a brief look from behind Dr Matthews's back.

Gemini was then left alone in the labs with the scientists who poked and prodded her with their various instruments for another half an hour until she was lead again by a security force of 12 men, this time to a metal cell.

Looking around the small cell which looked unsurprisingly like the one she first woke up in except this time the floor felt like a new type of metal, she settled herself down to wait for ….. whenever the scientist wanted her again, but she couldn't shake this feeling of foreboding 


	3. The incident

Authors note: well here is the third chapter of Origins, I apologise for the amount of time it has taken it and thank you to anyone who has read my story. You may or may not have noticed but I have finally Beta'd the first two chapters, removing spelling mistakes and changed them slightly to make it flow easier. Reviews would be greatly welcomed. 

Gemini was awoken by a distant rumbling noise like that from an explosion, outside her cell she could hear alarms going off and the panicked voices of scientists. She stood up in her cell trying to figure out what was going on outside, moments later a second explosion rocked the cell, this time significantly more violent and knocked her from her feet, distantly she could her screaming from outside her cell probably from one of the female scientists. 

A series of explosions racked the cell and the sound of angst metal filled the air as a steel girder came crashing through the ceiling of her cell. She dived out of the way of the girder a mere second before it crashed into the space she had previously been occupying, she crouched looking at the broken beam and noticed how close it had came to hitting her. The cell wall underneath the metal girder had collapsed tearing a hole in the metal walls and leaving damaged pipes spewing steam.

Gemini stayed crouched in shock, staring at the hole in the wall where steam was still gushing out of the pipes when a single thought came to her.

Freedom

This was it, this was her chance to escape, to be free and no longer be monitored or experimented on. The opportunity had presented itself and she took it, climbing over the rumble and broken pipes into the corridor outside her cell.

In the corridor chaos reigned supreme, explosions still racked the base and broken bodies littered the corridors. Machinery and computers exploded sending lethal shrapnel flying in all directions and the cries of the injured, dying and terrified echoed down the hallways, Gemini moved around the dead bodies and rumble, the scientists paying no attention to her in their attempt to escape. Thick smoke filled the corridors preventing people from seeing were they where going making people tripped and stumbled over equipment. Gemini herself moved swiftly over the rumble and wreckage with the smoke proving no problem to her eyesight although the fires that burned everywhere were a problem making ghost images appear in her peripheral vision.

So she stood in the middle of the bedlam trying to take in the chaos of the situation, watching almost detachedly as people panicked and screamed, they were all running around like headless chickens. There were a few people who tired to calm everyone down, take control of the situation and get organised in order to start a rescue effort for anyone trapped or injured. They however didn't have much of a chance to get organised before it happened…..

From Gemini's point of view it happened to be a warm patch of air at first that caught her attention, the scientists were unable to spot the sudden unnatural increase in air temperature at that particular patch of air. They remained quite oblivious until it suddenly burst into life, a burning vortex of red it appear to Gemini as although her memories told her that this vortex was the same green portal as she remembered. The scientists all stopped and gazed at the portal, some in awe, others in fear and terror as they recognised the portals. The portal gave a single large cackle and suddenly from Creatures emerged, two legged creatures with two fore limbs and a strange head with multifaceted eyes on it…. These she recognised, her predatory Xen side knew these as lesser creatures than it, slaves to do its bidding… the scientists screamed in terror and fled at the sight of these strange alien creatures. 

The fleeing scientists attracted the slaves attention who went straight into attack mode screaming "DIE!" in English as best as they could before they shot burning lighting down the corridor that struck the several of the scientists dead. The remaining scientists fled down the corridor pursued by the majority of the alien slaves. A single slave remained having seemed to have sensed Gemini's presence from were she stood behind it in the rubble, both Gemini and the alien slave didn't move a muscle as they both stopped and stared at one another. Gemini waited to see how the creature would react to a hybrid, its general appearance showed that it was confused and Gemini tensed her muscles in case the slave decided to make a fight of it. 

After several moments the slave looked away, running off down the corridor where the sounds of "DIE!" and the cackle of lightning followed by large amounts of gunfire indicated a major fight was going on between the slaves and most likely the security forces. Gemini had gotten the impression from the slave that as long as she left them alone, they would leave her alone which suited her fine, she turned and ran off down the corridor in the opposite direction rather not wanting to get into a fight with the human security personnel. She followed the corridor as it twisted around the complex maze of labs and offices for quite a while not meeting another soul and treading over the shattered glass and metal with her bare feet, unsurprisingly her feet were bleeding quite a bit leaving her acid blood burning into things. The pain was distracting her as she tried to silently creep over the rumble and blood loss would probably start weakening her soon because despite the fact her feet were healing almost instantly, they were getting cut back open with every step she took.

Noting a half clothed dead body lying in a door way, Gemini stepped into the room hopefully looking to find clothes and as she looked around it looked like she was in luck, the room appeared to be a changing room for the security guards. She walked over to the lockers and began ripping them apart looking for clothes, after tearing every single locker apart she had come to the conclusion that the majority of the clothes would be fair too large for her considering she was 0nly 4'10". Who hired 4'10" security guards?, Gemini paused and thought about were else she could get clothes from, remembering that the twins, Aya and Naomi had all been wearing some sort of black fatigues, if she could find out where they stored the clothes for her siblings she could take some of the twins since they were the same size.

It stood to reason that the clothes would probably be around the Bio-dome itself as technicians and scientists were unlikely to want to walk half was across the base to get clothes….. hmmm the base…. Gemini still didn't know where she was, knowing her luck it was probably written on the walls but she just couldn't read it. Stretching Gemini decide she would head down to the Bio-dome to get better clothing than just the flimsy medical gown she was wearing and see if her siblings had already escaped. She had already tried to contact her siblings telepathically ever since she had been taken from the bio-dome but all the rock seemed to act like some sort of telepathic damper. 

She was so deep in thought she didn't notice anyone come into the room.

"Freeze!" shouted a fearful voice followed by the sound of a rifle being clicked, Gemini froze and then slowly turned around to face him. The security guard looked even more panicked as he took the sight of her in noting the Chitin ridges on her arms and claws then at the room which she had torn apart and the deep claw marks in some of the lockers. That was it for the security guard, he had seen too much freaky shit today and tried to pull the trigger on his rifle. Gemini lunged forward with inhuman speed knocking the gun aside so that the shot missed her, the rifle flying out of the guards hands and landing somewhere in the corner. The force was enough to knock the guard off his feet, letting out a panicked cry he collapsed in a hysterical heap on the floor, eyes wide before scrambling to his feet and running off down the corridor as fast as his feet could carry him.

Gemini scowled as the guard fled before heading into the corner of the room to retrieve the rifle, her scowl darkened as she noticed that he had used his last shot and with a disgusted sigh she threw the rifle away. She stepped back into the hallway, wandering around until she found a section of corridor that seemed familiar, following the corridor around and taking a few turns, she eventually came to an elevator that wasn't working. It was the same elevator which went all the way down to the bio-dome, she forced the elevator doors open and looked down the shaft, it had to be at least a mile drop to the bottom but it was most likely the fastest way down. Sighing she looked around again and decide that her best chance to get down would be to used her razor sharp claws and natural climbing ability, she just didn't trust the ladders or the elevator cable, either of which could break at any moment. No she decided looking at the metal girders in the middle of the elevator shaft, she was going to take a different way down.

Gemini made a leap into the centre of the elevator shaft onto the metal girders that divided to the two separate shafts just catching the end of it with her claws and swung herself up onto it before beginning to and clambered over the metal beams making her way down. Eventually she came to the depth that felt right, some how instinctively knowing which level it was, she climbed around to the door of the elevator and opened the door expecting to see the same devastated corridors. To her surprise the corridors actually looked half-decent if you ignored the equipment and papers all over the floor as people tired to make an escape, this part of the base must have been better build than the rest or were further away from the source of the explosions. She sent out a mental call to the others but none of them responded, she hoped they had survived and were just to far away to answer.

Gemini wandered through the corridors until she came to one of the observation rooms that overlooked the Bio-Dome, a massive hole had been torn through the side of the Dome from which her siblings had probably made their escape or at least she hoped. Vaguely reassured that her sibling had escaped even though she wasn't with them, she went to seek out proper clothing, after checking some twenty or thirty different rooms on the floor, some of which were staff rooms, labs or boring storage rooms. She eventually found the same clothing the twins wore, it was some sort of standard military fatigues just made really small and fortunately didn't originally come with a tail hole, which would have been annoying. Stripping herself out of the hospital gown she pulled on the top and trousers, followed by a pair of combat boots, **'There' **she thought looking herself over, it was warmer and hid all the chitin on her back although the Chitin ridges on her arms where still visible. Hopefully would prevent most of the scratches and minor injuries, she was actually rather impressed by the fabric as it was near impossible to tear or rip.

Stepping out of the room, Gemini wandered into the main lab were most of the experiments on her were done after poking and prodding the various equipment she decided their was nothing to be learned her since she could read the note on the paper due to her eyesight. She exited the through the other doorway which lead up a group of stairs and then onto a walkway which over looked the bio-domes. The first bio-dome she walked over was the one were she and her siblings had been in, it was still pretty much looking the same except several of the windows had been broken and now there was a some sort of squid-bull-turkey thing walking around the dome. She decided to leave it be and walked to the other side of the walkway and opened the large red door, the sound of gun fire came echo down and curious Gemini wandered down the corridor beyond the doorway. 

Gemini heard the panicked cries of a familiar voice followed by what sounds like machine gun fire and took off running down the corridor, the corridor turned into a walkway going over the top of what looked like a warehouse. Looking down Gemini saw Sherry cowering behind a metal crate with a squad of soldiers opening fire on her. Next to Sherry was none other than Dr Matthews who had a pistol in her hand and was shooting back at the soldiers with impressive accuracy, two dead body lay on the floor as a testament to her skill which was more than unusual for a scientist. Gemini watched as Dr Matthews killed another soldier, her bullet managing to penetrate his vest, Dr Matthews was no doubt doing well but a group of soldiers were beginning to flank them using the crates as cover.

Gemini leapt down from the walkway and landed in the middle of the group startling the soldiers, using this to her advantage she slashed her claws across the stomach of the first soldier disembowelling him. She span and kicked the soldier behind her hard in chest, she head a sickening crack as bones shattered and the soldier collapsed to the floor coughing up blood. The remaining soldiers reacted to this Gemini in amongst them and turned their weapons on her, she span into the grasp of one of the soldiers and swung him around as he opened fire. His bullets missed Gemini completely and ended up killing his remaining two team mate, he didn't have much time to lament as Gemini twisted out of his grasp again and slashing her claws across his throat making him go down in a gurgle of blood. Gemini looked at the carnage she had caused for a second checking that everyone was dead or dying before moving through the crates to take on the rest of the soldiers. 

Only three soldiers remained in the firefight against Dr Matthews, they were spread out taking cover behind various crates around the room. Gemini moved closer to the nearest one and then pounced knocking him to the ground as she tore through his throat using her teeth killing the soldier, it was messy and bloody but got the job done. She rummaged through the soldiers pockets until she found what she was looking for, pulling the pin of the grenade and rolled it across the floor towards the two remaining soldiers, the cry of warning came out too late and both of the soldiers were blown up. 

****

*Click* "Don't move" Ordered Dr Matthews from her position behind the crate, she wasn't sure what was going on but she wasn't exactly going to trust one of those hybrids after she had witnessed its pure blooded cousins slaughter her fellow scientists. 

Gemini gave her an all suffering look, she supposed she didn't exactly look friendly covered in blood after just slaughtering a squad of soldiers then again she really did know what type of welcome she was going to receive from them after she had rescued them. 

"Don't!" Cried out a second voice and Sherry came out from were she had been hiding "She's okay, you can point the gun down" Sherry tried to explain, Dr Matthews looked unconvinced and keep her gun trained on Gemini. 

"Trust me" Begged Sherry, Dr Matthews looked at Sherry for a long while before warily lowering her gun but she still kept a firm grip on it.

"Thanks" Gemini said to Sherry once she released she wasn't going to be shot, Dr Matthews raised an eyebrow and the gun came straight back up again aimed at Gemini.

"So you can talk… hmmm Johnson was right" She mused while keeping the gun levelled at Gemini. Dr Matthews seemed to think long and hard whether or not to trust but in the end decided that they would need all the help they could get if they were to escape from this hell hole alive.

"Okay, I give you a chance but mess up and I swear I'll shoot you" She said finally lowering her gun.

Gemini didn't bother even replying to that and asked the question "What happened?"

"I'm not entirely sure" Answered Dr Matthews truthfully "I was down here with Sherry, running a series of test and then all hell broke lose. From what I could gather on the intercom before it went dead, something went horribly wrong in the anomalous materials department and now these guys showed up." She said kicking the dead body of one of the soldiers.

"We need to get out of her" Sherry said suddenly sounding nervous, she had been nervously looking around the room for the past few minutes, their was something in the air that made everyone's hairs stand on end. That gut instinct when you know something is going to happen and Gemini had decided she'd rather not find out what.

"I agree" Said Dr Matthews "How did you get down here?, last I remember you were in a genetic containment room on the 12 floor" 

"Down the elevator shaft but trust me you don't want to go that way" Gemini replied "It would be impossible for you to climb up"

Dr Matthews nodded thoughtfully "There is an access tunnel down which is used to deliver large cargo's down here, it goes straight to the surface into the warehouses above ground"

"What are you doing down here?" Sherry asked curiously "I would have thought you would have tried to escape rather than come deeper into the facility."

"I came back to try and find my siblings" Answered Gemini distracted, it was beginning to get to her being out of contract with them for so long.

"Siblings?" Squeaked Sherry surprised their was more than one of them

"Oh yeah, they make quite the happy family" Commented Dr Matthews sarcastically

Gemini just frowned and picked up the soldiers machines guns, passing one to both Dr Matthews and Sherry 

"You'll need these" She said, putting hers on her back using the strap. Dr Matthews bent down and rummaged for something in the soldiers packs before pulling something out. 

"Clips" Dr Matthews explained, storing them in the pockets of her lab coat.

"Lead on" Gemini said gesturing for Dr Matthews to take the lead, Dr Matthews was a little dubious about having her back to what she had previously had thought to be an unintelligent bio-weapon but had little other choice. The main doors had shorted out so they had to go down the corridor until they came to a stairwell, they went down two floor using the stairwell until Dr Matthews stopped in front of a door. 

Trying the handle Dr Matthews cursed "Shit, its locked" she tried to force the door using her body weight but it wouldn't budge, she stood back and tried to think. Sherry stepped forward and gave the door handle a solid yank ripping the door handle and a chunk of the door right off, while sherry didn't quite have tyrant strength yet she was still pretty strong. 

Looking impressed Gemini stepped past the two and into the tunnel beyond,, it was a large tunnel made of concrete judging by the heat signature and had a road running through the middle of it, the road was separated by large blast doors every 100 meters or so. There were small maintenance doors to the side of the blast doors where a person could go through without having to open the large blast doors. Dr Matthews and Sherry came through after her, the tunnel was completely empty besides from them.

"Well, I suppose we've just got to follow this passage up to the surface right?" Asked Sherry looking around.

"Yeah… I don't like this, something feels wrong" Muttered Dr Matthews, Gemini had a similar sense of foreboding.

With perfect timing an awesome roar echoed throughout the tunnels, it sounded like it came from behind the blast door behind them. They turned and stared at the large blast door behind them as the ground began to shake.

"The Hell" Asked Dr Matthews while backing away from the blast door with a sinking feeling in her stomach along with Sherry and Gemini. 

The blast door exploded outwards and a huge 30ft creature came crashing through, it roared again deafening them and practically shaking the tunnel before turning its attention towards them. It growled dangerously and advanced on the three people before it absolutely dwarfing them with its sheer size. Its head just brushed the top of the ceiling as it began slowly advancing towards them the ground shaking beneath them with every step it took.

"RUN!" Screamed Sherry before she took off for the door next to the other blast door.

Dr Matthews and Gemini both decided that running was a valid plan and ran like hell after her, the giant monster hot on their tails. 


	4. Counterpart

Authors note: Well I'm surprised that people are still reading this… see people! This is what happens when you don't review, authors believe no one cares about their work and they decide to put it aside. And yes this is mainly aimed at Mr Barney Calhoun but damnit if you liked my work why the hell not review it! … anyway just for you and because I am extremely bored and just cant be arsed to revise for my AS exams I give you the next chapter of origins 

The three of them ran down the corridor as fast as they could with the gigantic creature behind them, its single red eye glazing at them with predatory hunger as it stalked after them, its every step shaking the tunnels. They reached the maintenance door in record time and crashed through it, ignoring the startled cries of a security guard and a maintenance man on the other side before sprinting down the narrow corridor and out the door at the end. The startled cries of the men turned into screams which were cut horribly short as the gargantuan came crashing through the wall crushing them both to death beneath its own weight and several tons of concrete.

Beyond the door opened up into a larger section of tunnel filled with rubble as it was obvious the ceiling was beginning to collapse from the explosions that had racked the base earlier. The most noticeable part of the tunnel section was the suspension bridge that joined the two sides of the tunnel which were separated by a deep chasm. Sherry who was still ahead took a moment to look back at the tunnel behind them and managed to tripped over a piece of rubble lying around and fell with a cry, she lay wincing painfully at her twisted ankle. Both Gemini and Dr Matthews stopped to pull her to her feet, the second blast door collapsed as the colossal monster crashed through, it stopped for a moment scanning the tunnel before its giant red eye focused on them once again.

Dr Matthews pulled her gun out and fired a volley of bullets at creature, most of which bounced off the hard chitin exoskeleton that the creature seemed to have except for one bullet which hit the huge creature in its eye. The massive creature roared and thrashed about in pain, closing its eyes and smashing its arms into the walls bringing down a large portion of the ceiling before it finally turned and glared at them again, this time giving off the impression that it was quite thoroughly pissed off.

Grabbing Sherry harshly, Dr Matthews pulled the injured girl to her feet and all but dragged her towards the bridge. Gemini lagged behind a second and had to dive aside to avoid being flashed fried by twin infernos that shoot out of the creatures arms, the patch of ground she had previously been standing on had turned into a pool of molten rock. Gemini's eyes widen in shock at that and she made a mental note that it would not be a pleasant experience to get caught by them. 

The Creature raised its huge foot before slamming down on the floor, transferring some sort of energy shock wave into the ground. Gemini struggled to keep her footing as the whole tunnel seemed to rock and shake the tunnel; she distantly heard the panicked cry from sherry. However her attention was diverted by having to dive out of the way again, first from a chunk of the ceiling that decided now was a good time to collapse and then again from those lethal flame-throwers. 

Gemini hissed slightly as a wave of intense heat barely missed her, which had been way too close for her personal comfort. She cast a look across the metal suspension bridge to see Sherry trying to pull Dr Matthews back onto the bridge from the place where she had almost fallen off probably when that... thing... had unleashed its shock wave. Well she couldn't stay here with this creature for much longer, it was only a matter of time before her luck and reflexes failed her and she be turned crispy by big, bad and ugly. So Gemini started sprinting towards the bridge were Dr Matthews had just managed to get to her feet and was making her way across the bridge with Sherry who seemed to be limping quite a bit. 

Gemini ran for the bridge pretty much dropping to all fours to climb over the mountains of rumble that had build up, sliding down on of the piles she landed on her feet. Not even giving herself a moment to rest she ran flat out across the bridge, the very ground shaking with massive footsteps as the gargantuan followed her. She was only halfway across the bridge when she was almost thrown from the bridge as it lurched; metal shrieking as it twisted agonisingly. Gemini had to slam her claws into the bridge to prevent herself from being thrown off, leaving large 8 inch claw marks in the very metal floor of the bridge and leaving her hang off the edge of the bridge which was tipped at a almost 90 degree angle. 

The Massive creature was on the bridge advancing as fast as it could on her, the bridge obviously never designed to withstand such massive weights was buckling and twisting, the cables on the very verge of snapping. Gemini pulled threw herself back onto the bridge, not actually that difficult for herself when one thought she weighted almost nothing and of the strength in her silicon muscles. The monster roared again and crashed itself through the cables and bridge supports, cables snapped and metal twisted and snapped as the creature came towards her, the bridge suddenly disturbingly dropped several inches and the straining noise from the cables seemed to increase in volume. Gemini staggered to her feet despite the fact that the bridge rocked side to side worse than a fishing boat in the storm of the century. Gemini then was promptly forced to throw herself to the floor again as the gargantuan used those heat beams again turning the bridge supports behind Gemini to little more than slag, the heat stung her back as she counted her blessings once more.

The Bridge lurched again as it dropped several more inches as Gemini became aware of the others screaming at her, something about getting the fuck off the bridge, Gemini snorted as she rolled herself to her feet **'what the hell did they think she was doing?'.** Gemini began running for the other side of the bridge as fast as she could which proved to be a worthy challenge of itself with the bridge tilting and pitching as it was, not considering the giant evil killer monster out to kill her. She didn't get very far before the gargantuan decided to raise its foot again and slam another shock wave down, the bridge pitched dangerously and it finally buckled and collapsed. With the cables supporting the bridge all snapping and coming lose, Gemini made a mad leap for the edge of the platform on the other side, missing she plunged down the chasm. 

Falling, she made a mad grab at one of the suspension cables that hanged from the ceiling and caught it, the cable lurched a bit being not entirely secure in the ceiling since the bridge incident. Gemini looked down watched the bridge and monster tangled up in the cables twist, flip and fall until it crashed at the bottom of the chasm some 500 meters below her, she pondered briefly if the fall would be enough to kill something like that. 

"Gemini!!" the scream came from above her probably from Sherry she guessed

"Oh God! Are you alright!?" Shouted Dr Matthews, Gemini looked up to see Dr Matthews and Sherry some 30 or 40 meters above her looking down at her.

"I'm fine!" Gemini shouted back up while not entirely true there was no point in worrying them, looking down Gemini became convinced that yes that was the biggest bloody hole inside a tunnel in the whole damn world... Hell it would probably give Xen a good run too.

Gemini looked up at the cable and then across at the platform where Sherry and Dr Matthews were currently looking over the edge from, she was still in the middle of the chasm and even if she climbed up she could never reach that platform even if she jumped. She also didn't fancy her chances of finding something to stop her fall if she fell a second time, looking below her she noticed another level some ten meters below her that she could easily swing and then drop to. Her mind made up Gemini turned and looked up at her companions.

"Look! I can't make it back up there... You'll have to go on, I'll meet up with you again later alright?" Gemini shouted up to the top.

Dr Matthews looked dubious, the facility was massive and it would be damned difficult for them to meet up again but Sherry shouted back down.

"Okay! We meet up with you later!" Before she moved out of Gemini's vision, Dr Matthews stayed for a moment longer before finally leaving.

Gemini sighed before she set herself to the task before her, shifting her body weight she began swinging back and forth on the cable making the cable groan worryingly. Once the cable was swinging over the platform the she let go and dropped the ten meters to land in a crouch, her eyes quickly scanning the area for danger. The only heat signatures that she could spot were that of a few hot pipes which ran under the platform and then poured out at the edge, After looking around she walked towards an access hatch in the side of the wall. After spending several minutes trying to figure out how to open it, Gemini gave up and slashed at the hatch with her claws until she managed to tear the thing open and then stepped through into the corridor beyond.

The corridor was made of old cracked concrete this combined with the dusty floors convinced Gemini that no one had been in this part of the base for a significant amount of time and that it was quite abandoned. Moving past large wooden crates that seemed to be stacked everywhere, Gemini walked through the corridor, some of the doorways had been boarded up while others seemed to have been bricked up for reasons not apparent.

A noise caught Gemini's attention and she moved cautiously in to investigate, turning the corner she caught sight of two decent sized Xen creatures... the grunts of the Xen army, large and powerful her Xen side supplied... They were also used to maintain the purity of the Xen species and so were probably not going to like her much. Gemini paused and thought for a moment, sure she could take an alternate route but what was life without a few chances.. besides she wanted to know how they would react to her, better to learn out now with only two of them than with a group of 30 or 40. So with that thought in mind, she stepped out from around the corner and straight into the Grunts field of vision, both of which stopped when they saw her. Gemini took her time to take them in, every muscle, ligament and bone comparing them to her memories while the grunts seemed to take in the mesh of Xen and Human that was her. They seemed to chatter agitated to one another in their own language that she simply didn't understand. 

Her own Xen side had been purely telepathic in their communications so she didn't know what they were saying and these grunt were like humans in the fact that their body language was all screwed up so she couldn't tell what they were thinking. Not being able to tell what people were thinking made Gemini twitchy. 

This proved a moot point after a sudden roar from one of the grunts and they both turned their guns on her and fired. Gemini dropped down onto all fours and lunged forward at the two grunts closing the distance on the two of them so rapidly that her telepathic senses could note their surprise. Sharp pains entered her back as the homing insect bullets hit their target but Gemini ignored her injuries as she leapt past the first grunt, slashing with claws severing the hornet gun from its arm, cutting through flesh, muscle and bone with frightening ease. Gemini then landed on the second Grunt her claws slashing through the creature's chest and neck until it was quite dead, its body a total mess. She then turned her attention to the first grunt who was bleeding heavy from what was left of its arm with predatory intent, Gemini growled and then pounced with bone shattering force killing the grunt before she began to tear into it with her teeth, devouring it.

Several minutes later she was licking the copper and slightly sulphur-ish tasting blood from her arms and body feeling better if a tad disturbed, she knew they were predatory instincts from her Xen side emerging, well... at least she wasn't hungry anymore. She gave the ruined corpse at her feet a good kick, her back was still sore from where their weapons had hit her fortunately she had acid blood meaning that she didn't have to dig the insect bullets out of herself and the injuries were all but healed. Gemini sighed, the fight with the grunts had been ... fun but it didn't distract her from the longing to be back with her siblings and the thought that she had to find Sherry and Dr Matthews before something happened to them. She didn't much care for Dr Matthews honestly but Sherry seemed like a nice kid to her and well... she was the closest thing to Gemini outside of her siblings, something else that was a born and breed killer.

Pushing herself to her feet Gemini started looking around the corridors for somewhere else to go, looking along the walls Gemini found an air vent about head height for her although that wasn't saying much considering her 4'10" height. Gemini shrugged, it was as good a way to go as any other so she slashed her claws across the air vent grate tearing it from the wall before pulling herself up into the air vent with ease. Where a human might have great difficulties seeing where they were going, Gemini's heat based eyes could easily see everything and she prowled through the air vents truly in her element. Coming across a vertical air vent going up some 50 feet, she decided that was going to be her route up to the surface, digging her claws into the metal she climbed up the sheer vertical air vent with only minimal effort. Pulling herself up into the horizontal air vent at the top, she heard alien chitterlings nearby, moving with cautious stealth, her muscles tensing for another fight, she turned the corner... coming face to face with small crab critter. 

The little crab alien tittered and crowed as it came up to her, it seemingly taking her as friendly and she rubbed her hand across the top of it, stroking it, making it come out with the most bizarre whirling purr that made Gemini giggle in delight. 

Stroking the little creature some more Gemini then left it alone in peace and headed over to one of the air vents, looking down through the air vent she could tell she was in the ceiling above a corridor. Checking that it was clear she kicked the vent through before dropping down into corridor. The Corridor itself was much newer looking than the previous one although a layer of dust covered the floor here too although that seemed to be more from the explosions than disuse to Gemini, looking around Gemini picked a direction and headed off that way. 

Coming across a lab she looked around, she didn't even pretend to understand half of what the equipment or machinery was for but it looked similar to the equipment that was in the labs near her and her siblings. Perhaps this lab was used for some sort of genetic research too although there also seemed to be a significant number of small obviously expensive pieces of cybernetics lying around.. How she understood the concept cybernetics still confused her.. then again whole reasons behind her memory and sense of self threw her, she decided it was best to leave such things alone and not question them.

A Philosophical thought entered her mind curtsy of her human sides memory.. "The easiest way to end a miracle is to ask it why it is" .. musing over that thought Gemini stepped into a medical room of some sort. 

The room had a steel examination table, a heart monitor which was making that annoying flat line noise and an IV which was connected to a needle covered in blood. The needle drew her attention as it was covered in fresh blood and was still warm meaning whomever it was attached to only left a few moments ago. Frowning at the heart monitor that was being to annoy her, Gemini slammed her claws into it and ripped out the wires killing the heart rate monitor. Gemini walked over to the door on the other side of the room which lead out onto another corridor, this one made of concrete and the floor of it was covered in dust too although the general scents of the corridor again told her the dust was not from disuse.

Suddenly a familiar hysterical voice came from one of the air vents in the wall, Gemini paused in bemusement, it was that security guard from earlier and from the sounds of his screaming he had run into something a tad unpleasant. Having nothing better to do Gemini tore the grate of the walk, jumped into the air vent system again and began prowling down the air vents. Coming across the cross junction she came across the crab from before which upon seeing her rubbed itself against her body screeching. Gemini grinned and stroked the crab again, which made that odd whirling purring noise again making her giggle yet again before she focused back on getting to the noise of the screaming. She moved through the air vents until she came above the room where the screaming had came from, looking down from the air vent she noticed a number of different things. 

Firstly all of the screaming had stopped, the source of said screaming, the hysterical guard was slumped against the wall unconscious or dead Gemini didn't know with a young woman was crouched over him holding a pistol in her hands. The young woman had obviously taken out the guard but what really interested Gemini was what the woman was saying. 

"Need to get above ground." The young woman whispered to her self "That guard was running from something, an I don't really wanna know what..."

Gemini grinned to herself, that something had probably been herself then Gemini heard the sound of footsteps, it seemed like she wasn't the only one who had been attracted by the screaming. A group of Security guards, some armed with pistols, others with machine guns had barged into the room, the woman gasped and span around looking at the 6 guards with frightened eyes, the gun still at in her hand at her hip. 

"Awww fuck man she wasted bobby!" Cried out one of the guards before levelling his gun at the young woman. 

Gemini realised if she didn't do something now the guards would kill the young woman, making her mind up Gemini came crashing through the ceiling, landed in crouch in the middle of the security guards. Gemini lashed out with her claws at the group of men, the first man cried out in pain as his hamstrings were cut before she stood up, slashing across his stomach disembowelling him. He collapsed to the floor dying as Gemini swung around with her claws flashing and sliced the neck of the guard behind her open, killing him too her body seeming like a lethal blur of motion. 

She then leapt at a third security guard slashing and killing a forth guard as she flew past him, landing on the third Gemini literately smashed her fist through his chest and tore out his still beating heart. The two surviving guards reacted to this lethal monster which had dropped in amongst their mist by shooting everything they had in her direction, bullets flying, Gemini dropped down and rolled avoiding them, slashing at the fifth guard as she past cutting deeply, severing the artery and spraying blood everywhere. Gemini shrieked in pain as two of the bullets from the last guard clipped her side before leaping on him and tearing his throat out with her claws before letting his corpse drop to the ground dead. 

Gemini stepped back from the five corpses and the one whimpering security guard who wouldn't live much longer still covered in blood. Gemini now turned with predatory slowness to the young woman who seemed terrified by the slaughter... yet the way she stood spoke of training, the tense way she stood as if always being ready for a fight and she had a dangerous aura of her own.

"Don't come any closer!" The young woman warned

"Really?" Gemini half murmured, half purred challenging the young woman, she almost had an instinctual hatred of being told what to do.

The young woman snapped up her gun and levelled it at Gemini's head with impressive speed for a human, the woman seemingly taking in the appearance of Gemini for the first time. Her eyes widened as she took the blood, the Chitin ridges along Gemini's arms and the "predatory" body language she radiated. Not willing take any chances the young woman fired a volley of bullets at Gemini with deadly accuracy only Gemini's inhuman reactions saved her from certain death and even then she hissed in sharp pain as a bullet when through her shoulder. Lunging forwards and covering the ground between them in the blink of an eye making the young woman gasp and slashed at the woman's stomach. A move that would have disembowelled anyone else but the woman's reactions were fast enough that claws only just caught her stomach cutting her painfully but not the dangerous or lethal blow it could have been. 

The woman kicked out and managed to trip Gemini up but Gemini made a grab at the woman catching her painful on the shoulder with her claws and the two went sprawling to the floor rolling about. Neither managing to lay a blow on each other as they rolled about until Gemini managed to roll on top. She raised her claws for a lethal blow down across the woman's neck only to be stopped by a gun being shoved in her face and clicked back.

'Hmmm stalemate' thought Gemini 

AUTHORS NOTE: REVIEW PEOPLE!! I WONT WRITE OTHERWISE! 


	5. Leviathan

The two women faced each other down, one with her gun aimed in the face of the woman above her while the other had her claws raised for a killing blow which would come down even if she was shoot. The only reason they had paused in their fight was because there was no way either could continue without killing both of themselves, the young woman's gun threatened to go off sending a bullet into Gemini's head. A wound she wasn't entirely sure she would be able to recover from and was in no mood to test that theory. Gemini's own claws would come down by reflex anyway and so the two women froze in their position.

Their eyes searched each other's for the slightest sign of distraction or weakness, their resolves like iron, neither was willing to back down in this deadly game as the minutes slowly began to tick away. Hearts pounded with a deathly calm, neither afraid for their lives instead shrouded in a fearless peace.

Clicking from outside in the corridor caught their attention though neither was willing to move or back down, out of the corner of their eyes they saw a Xen creature emerge from the corridor though the door of the room. It was the size of a bear with a head that had several eyes and on the ends of each of its limbs were large 8 inch claws that clicked against the floor as the creature moved. Sensing prey the creature let out a ear bleeding screech before leaping at the two women, its claws intent on ripping them to bloody shreds, the woman beneath Gemini snapped her gun around with awesome speed as squeezed of a volley of four bullets straight into the creatures skull. Gemini stepped back and slashed at the creature with her claws deflecting the creature's body mid-air preventing it from landing on them with those dangerous claws.

The young woman pushed herself to her feet, she towered over Gemini like almost everyone else and she looked cautiously and warily at the hybrid who didn't seem to intent on killing her anymore despite the fact she was out of ammo. She winced at the pain across her stomach and in her shoulder, her injuries would need some medical attention and while not critical they did restrict her movement, a bad thing in a place gone to hell like this.

"You're not trying to kill me anymore?" She asked warily the curiosity getting the better of her.

Gemini turned to look at the young woman "Why?" she asked disinterestedly "You'd rather me try to?"

The young woman let out most unlady like snort "No.. but you did attack me first...why the sudden change in heart?" She asked.

"Actually.. you shot at me" Gemini pointed out calmly licking her claws clean of the creatures blood.

The other woman made a face of disgust "Well you didn't help!... And who the hell are you anyway?" She demanded

Gemini cocked her head and looked at the woman before her "Technically experiment XH-013.. but I'm not, I'm Gemini" She stated firmly "WHO are you?" She asked pointedly

The other woman looked uneasy "Karen" she answered

Gemini looked at 'Karen' curiously "Just Karen?" she asked, humans usually had surnames in her experience.

Karen let out a sigh "Look its all I know, Okay!" She snapped

Gemini hmph'd as she took in the information, the guards reactions, Karen's scent, speed and accuracy combined with her memory loss lead to only one conclusion. "You're the person from that other lab" Gemini said, her voice a statement not a question.

Karen looked up surprised and suspicious "yeah?"

"Thought so" confirmed Gemini "its why I stopped the guards from killing you, we're the same... well not the same but we're both experiments, we should stick together" She said simply

Karen paused and thought this over "Right... so your saying that I should join up with a bloodthirsty killer who slaughtered a bunch of security guards without blinking an eye" She asked incredulously.

Gemini nodded affirmative.

Karen sighed as she picked up a machine gun and a pistol from one of the dead security guards "why not?.."

Gemini waited for Karen to finish picking up weapons before walking out the door with Karen following behind her, they wandered for a few minutes through the corridors which were full of trolleys and spare computer equipment. The doors that lead off from the corridor went into identical looking offices and labs, none of which seemed to have anything of much interest in them.

"Any clue where we're going or what we're going to do?" Karen asked Gemini as they emerged into another corridor that looked identical to the last except for fewer trolleys and some disturbing blood marks across the floor. Usefully one of the few trolleys in the corridor seemed to contain medical supplies and Karen used to opportunity to begin bandaging her injuries, wrapping them around her stomach and shoulder after cleaning them out with disinfectant.

"Not really" Answered Gemini sniffing around in the air near the blood marks "I have some friends who are going up to the warehouses above. I'm also looking to find my siblings again besides that I'm making this up as I go along" Gemini knelt down next to the bloodstains and tapped her claws against them.

"Human, pretty recent too" Gemini said after a moments thought, "The predator that did this is most likely to still be around"

"Great" muttered Karen as she took the safety off the machine gun as she scanned the corridor for danger or movement either being valid reasons to start shooting at this point. "Not to sound offensive but what the hell are you exactly?" Karen asked her eyes still checking everything around them.

Gemini sniffed disdainfully "How is that not offensive? And I'm a hybrid... and you can stop giving me those looks, you are not exactly human either"

Karen scowled before walking ahead cautiously checking the path for danger and muttering mutinously about her half-breed companion turning a corner she spotted something that could definitely be classed as a problem. "Er...Hybrid Girl! you'd better take a look at this!"

* * *

Dr Matthews and Sherry were in a minor spot of bother, Dr Matthews dived behind a crate, ejecting the clip for her pistol before slamming a new clip in and turned to open fire on the soldiers which had managed to get them pinned yet again. She was developing a minor dislike for the US army in general as she gunned down another grunt who tried to make a dash for better cover, Sherry was managing quite well considering and had already killed two of the men which had attacked them. They did have a security guard with them for a while, a cute guy called Mark which Dr Matthews had been flirting with unfortunately he had decided to take the lead and was blown up by an unseen laser trip mine. **'Quite annoying really'** thought Dr Matthews, how come all the cute men ended up being either gay, scientists or plastered across the walls, she was beginning to think her ex was right when he said she was a black widow.

Ducking to avoid a hail of bullets Dr Matthews took the time to glance over to Sherry to see how the girl was doing, she did have a minor limp from spraining her ankle earlier and it was limiting her moment a bit. Sherry was clutching an M40 and occasionally returning fire at two grunts in the far corner, they were behind cover and Sherry with no weapons training was proving less than successful at hitting them. Dr Matthews looked out from cover again and fired again catching one of the grunts in the shoulder causing him to fall back and curse in pain clutching the injury, not waiting around Dr Matthews shot at the next available target which happened to be the squad leader. Taking the squad leader out of action with a few bullets to the chest, Dr Matthews took the opportunity to dive from her cover to get over to Sherry who was not doing so well, cringing as bullets pinged mere inches away from her.

"I'm out of ammo" said Sherry desperately as Dr Matthews ducked down besides her, pointing to her M40 hopelessly to demonstrate her point, Dr Matthews gave the weapon a brief glance when something struck her interest.

"Is that a grenade launcher?" she asked rhetorically to the world, picking up the weapon and grinning. Waiting for a pause in the incoming fire, She poked out from behind cover and fired at the two grunts in the corner with the grenade launcher, the projectile exploded upon impact throwing the two grunts through the air. The room shook as secondary explosions rocked it as crates exploded causing the ceiling and walls to collapse inwards.

"Shit" Cursed Dr Matthews as she dropped the M40 and grabbed Sherry pulling her back away from the collapsing debris.

As the dust settled, Dr Matthews could hear rather loud and most violent swearing from the other side of the great pile of wreckage, obvious some of the soldiers had survived not that it mattered since about 20 tons of rumble separated them, Sherry looked wide-eyed at the destruction.

"A little more bang than I had been expecting" Said Dr Matthews wryly dusting herself off.

"Well we had best get going" Stated Dr Matthews as they walked on through the tunnel and carried on towards the main warehouses that were at the end of the tunnel, where hopefully they would meet up with Gemini again and then begin their escape from this damned facility.

* * *

"Well... this could be a complication" Stated Gemini staring at the giant tentacles that tapped against the walkways in the next section, the section looked like it had originally been a missile silo which had been converted and more recently had gained a unpleasant alien critter. The tentacle's seemed to emit a deep whale like noise from deeper down the silo, much deeper and this lead Gemini to the belief that what they were facing was just a small part of the creature, if you could call 60 ft clawed tentacles small. Hell those claws had to be 8 ft long, which caused Gemini to sigh in frustration; she did not want to have to get passed it if she could avoid it and it was looking increasingly likely that they would have to do exactly that.

"Any other way around?" Asked Karen as she too gazed at the giant green tentacles, her eyes widened as one of the tentacles smashed a metal crate into shards with a single hit.

"Possibly" Mused Gemini cocking her head to the side in thought "but this is the most direct route, more or less straight up"

"Great" Groaned Karen leaning against the wall in frustration "Think there is anyway of sneaking past it?"

Gemini gave the creature a look over, four great tentacles were visible tapping and moving at what seemed randomly around the silo hitting the walkway at random places and from what she could see they didn't seem to have any eyes or sensory equipment attached to them. Frowning thoughtfully Gemini picked up a piece of rubble at her feet and tossed it into the silo, it clattering as it bounced down the walkways. The massive green tentacles instantly swung round and began hitting the parts of the walkway where the rubble had bounced along.

Karen noted the movement of the tentacles with interest "motion sensitive?" She thought out aloud "Or maybe sound?"

Gemini looked at the tentacles and their reactions carefully, considering possibilities "Sound" She answered finally "We could sneak past it if we're quiet, hopefully it wont notice us if we cause enough of a distraction and are quite enough"

"Hopefully?" Karen snorted "I like that..." she murmured sarcastically, fidgeting with the machine gun in her hands while she'd be damned to admit it, green tentacle monsters capable of ripping her limb from limb in seconds made her slightly nervous... Make that a lot nervous.

Gemini was too busy picking up a hand full of the debris and rubbish that could be used to distract the creature to pay much attention to Karen's ramblings. Giving Karen a nod she threw a chunk of metal that clattered noisily down the walkways falling several levels attracting the creatures attention away from their immediate area. Straight away the two women moved silently and effortlessly around the silo walkways moving with unnatural stealth as they reached the first ladder which Gemini practically flew up while Karen took a while longer, climbing up the rungs of the ladder.

It was while they where crossing the second level above them that fated decided to poke its rather ugly and pointy nose in. Gemini suddenly saw a giant looming tentacle raise up alongside the walkway they where on before it came crashing forward, Gemini leapt forward easily avoiding the clawed tentacle while Karen barely managed to avoid being eviscerated and screamed as the walkway beneath her collapsed from the claws attack. Karen fell losing grip of her machine gun and managed to grasp the edge of the walkway below with the edge of her fingers and scrambled to pull herself back up. She screeched throwing herself to the side and keeping her hold on the walkway with a single hand as a tentacle smashed down in the space she had been occupying, Gemini rolled her eyes in disgust at Karen, the creatures hunted by sound and she was screaming her ass off.

Gemini supposed she might as well rescue her companion again, she hadn't gone through all the effort of rescuing her the first time to lose her less than an hour later although Karen was seriously going to owe her later for this.

"Oi! Ugly!!" Shouted Gemini down at the creature banging the walls at the same time and generally making a racket, the tentacles instantly turned to face her _'Huh... that actually worked'_ Mused Gemini before she had to dodge the oncoming clawed tentacle. Gemini ran, leapt and dodged for all her worth as the tentacles tried again and again to kill her to the best of their ability, Gemini left out a cry and then a hiss as one of the tentacles actually managed to hit its mark and hit her shoulder. She tripped and tried to roll to the best of her ability while ignoring the blinding pain that was now coming form her shoulder, sparing the injury a quick glance showed that her shoulder had been sliced right open and was hanging wrong, dislocated from the force of the blow.

Karen freed from the attentions of the evil green killer claw/tentacle things was now hauling herself back onto the walkway as quietly as she could, she didn't precisely want a repeat of that last piece of excitement again soon. Gemini had successfully distracted the tentacles from Karen but wasn't doing so well herself now, moving to help Gemini, Karen was thrown from her feet as explosions began rocking the silo, walkways collapsed and came crashing down as rubble fell from the walls and ceiling. The Leviathan tentacle monster was thrown into complete confusion at the noise and commotion with its tentacles lashing out in every direction as it's senses where bombard by sensory overload.

Gemini threw herself to the side to avoid the clawed tentacle from the wildly thrashing creature, green lightening crackled throughout the silo slamming into the walkways causing them to explode, showering the area in debris as they collapsed. Portals began popping into existence randomly as the strange green energy weakened the boundaries between dimensions causing hundreds of portals to wink in and out of existence, each existing for mere seconds before disappearing and taking anything unfortunate enough to be inside of it.

Gemini cursed as the walkway beneath her gave way as a portal sliced through it and she went plummeting down two levels before landing heavily on the walkway below which incidentally was the same one as Karen. Gemini managed to smack her head into the hard unforgiving steel walkway in the process of landing heavily quite hard, leaving her dazed and stunned. Karen had managed to make some very unique comments about the tentacle monsters parentage as she reached Gemini's side, several very large slabs of concrete smashed down around the pair and only extreme luck or divine intervention was keeping them alive. Karen help Gemini struggle back to her feet despite the immense pain from her injured shoulder which was now bleeding quite profusely with the acidic blood easily burning a great hole in her top. Karen winced in pain as she made the mistake of touching Gemini's blood, which immediately began burning her hand horrifically. She bit her lip and fought tears from her eyes as she quickly tried to wipe as much of the acid blood off herself as quickly as possible but her hand was already badly burned.

The leviathan itself shrieked horribly making an ear bleeding noise as one of its massive clawed tentacles was sliced in half by the emergence of another alien portal, the air in the silo at this stage was cackling with unnatural energy as more and more of the alien portals opened. The effect becoming worse and worse until both Karen and Gemini realised that they had to get out before the anomaly hit critical mass and did whatever evil portal opening green energy anomalies did.

Karen gave the entire silo a quick glance taking in every detail even while the place fell apart around her ears, the majority of the walkways had either collapsed or were twisted beyond any recognition making it impossible for them to go either back the way they came. Going forward wasn't an option either because there was nowhere forward to go to and they definitely couldn't stay where they were. The leviathan was working itself into a crazed maddened frenzy, lashing out completely without any control at everything around it bring down huge chunks of the walls with each hit and it was going to bring the entire silo down with it if the energy didn't do that first. Needless to say, here was not a good place to be and catching sight of the portals Karen came to a decision, Gemini was still too far out of it to help so she decided to take the bloody chance that those portals lead anywhere.

So Karen grabbed the injured and worse for the wear Gemini, hauled her to her feet and pulled her along to the edge of the portal. "We've got to get out of here!" Karen shouted in explanation to her dazed and confused companion while she tried her best to steer them both towards the portal.

Gemini gaining enough coherency to take stack of the situation despite her haze of immense pain, blood loss and concussion, noted that there was nowhere else to go which was quite a feat in and of itself. She tried for a second incredible feat but all Gemini managed to croak out a pain filled "How?"

Karen didn't even bother to answer that instead dragged her towards the end of their current walkways and threw them both off and into one of the spherical portals before Gemini could shake her head and say that it was a bad, bad idea.

* * *

She moved with inhuman speed and grace, her tail swinging around behind her as it counterbalanced her weight as she took the corner at speeds most vehicles wouldn't consider. She leapt across the ceiling beams two or three at a time before coming to rest at the one nearest to the air vent, swinging her tail out behind her, she crouched down and peered through the grate at the room below. A darting black shadow emerged from the darkness to her right, leaping over her and landing besides her with the same inhuman grace as the first, its tail shifting and moving to keep its balance in an otherwise precarious situation.

They both hungered and their prey below was unfortunate enough to be the nearest living thing to their current location, leaping forwards they ran along the ceiling support beams until they came to another air vent going straight down which they both flew down one after the other. They both emerged into the darkened canteen, their usually playful natures suppressed as they channelled pure predatory instincts in their hunt for food, ironically their prey was in the canteen for the same promise of food but it seemed he would become the food.

Prowling through the shadows at the edge of the room the twins began circling their prey making absolute no sound to give away their location as they both creeped into position, using their telepathy to co-ordinate their efforts waiting until the perfect moment before striking in total unity.

James Markham had worked as a security guard at the Black Mesa complex for almost six months and more recently after the disaster that had struck the facility he had learnt that he had to be on this guard all the time. He personally had survived several of the worst attacks by the alien creatures and the military which was killing civilians for some reason. It was for these reasons he had offered to go when it was discovered that the Lambar complex didn't have enough supplies to survive for any period of time until a rescue operation could reach them. It was at this point, when he was looking at the brief flash of angry chitin and claws did he realise why you never volunteered to do anything, it was a pity he wouldn't live long enough to benefit from that little tidbit of wisdom.

Tia and Mia both fed from James's carcass until they were both satisfied then they tore of various organs and limbs off his body before taking them back with them into the ventilation system above the ceiling. It allowed them to avoid most of the hostile creature that existed in this place and was also full of these cute chirping creatures that they both loved to play with. It was a pity that the rest of their cousins weren't as nice as the little ones, they had fired horrible stinging insects at the twins before Aya had torn them apart. Naomi had said they were obsessed with genetic purity as she could tell from her memories and the thoughts she could catch from their minds, Tia Pouted, she thought it was mean of them really ... its not like she got to choose what she was.

Her twin nudged her mind pointing out even if they could have chosen what to be born as, they wouldn't want to change a thing, none of the others processed their same agility, grace and beauty as themselves as Mia so humbly pointed out swishing her tail happily and gratefully. **'_The cousins could be damned'_**, Tia thought she had the tail and claws of an Elite and flesh and intelligence of a Human, something she was proud about and she would fight any of the others whom had any problems with that, she would have missed their beautiful graceful tails.

It made hunting like they had just done that much easier, the reasons why they were hunting was not only because they were hungry but also because they were bringing back food for Naomi who was the oldest of them, she also suffered from various physiological problems. Naomi was sickly again, she very often became very sickly at times but back then one of the humans in coats would give her something after sedating them all, unfortunately they were now on their own and would have to find the medicines to help Naomi.

Aya was the one whom had actually gone out hunting for humans medicine stuffs, she had the human eye sight and could read the strange symbols that was their written language unlike the twins and their newest sister Gemini. Tia slumped a little thinking about their new sister, the human coat men had taken her away before the large explosions and now she was lost to them. Mia nudged her sister up a bit both physically and mentally stating that their newest sister was clever like Naomi and didn't get sickly either, Mia was certain that she was alive and well.

The twins reached the nest that the group had build in the air vents, they didn't like having to leave Naomi alone but they were getting hungry and Naomi herself would do better from eating something besides their was very little within the air vents that even Naomi couldn't handle. They both were relieved however when they looked into the nest and found Naomi still there and she had managed to fall asleep, letting out the occasional pain whimper and delirious mutterings in a wide range of languages. Without the medicines all they could do was wait for Naomi to either get better or die, dropping the food in the corner of the makeshift nest they curled up around Naomi and waited.

* * *

The Xen world was as completely alien as the Xen species were themselves, twin suns hung in the never ending sky the view only interrupted by the floating land masses that deified gravity and simply hovered in the air. Giant spires of what looked like bone grew up tall into the sky and unearthly creatures flew overhead letting out bizarre whale song sound noises as they flocked together flying towards the twin suns. It was this unique landscape that both Gemini and Karen found themselves in as the portal spat them both out and indulged them in a wonderful 5 ft drop that Gemini shoulder just delighted in.

Karen looked around in dismay and came to the conclusion that she was no longer in Kansas. "Where the hell are we now?" She demanded as she got back on her feet unsteadily as the unexpected drop had shaken her a little.

Gemini groaned, wincing at the pain caused by even the slightest movement of her now thoroughly abused shoulder, the injury was bleeding quite badly every time it had started to heal it had once again be agitated. The blood had managed to dissolve a rather large chunk of her top, leaving it little more than rags which barely covered her, she would have to get a new one once she was back in the human world, assuming they ever got back there. Shaking her head and remembering Karen's question she sat up and looked around in pain.

"We're in Xen" Gemini whispered half in awe and half in fear, one part of her nature found the familiar surroundings a great comfort as she knew which plants and animals were safe and which were hostile. The other part feared the alien landscape, a place where the once familiar laws of physics have been rewritten and also from the memory of the grunts, Gemini was worried about being in the homeland of the other Xen creatures which would not react positively to her presence. Karen was having similar feelings, looking around more carefully and feeling completely naked without any weapon more potent than her pistol to defend herself with.

"Well fuck" Was Karen's contribution to the conversation.

AND THAT'S ANOTHER CHAPTER OF ORIGINS COMPLETED. AGAIN PLEASE READ AND REVIEW, THANK YOU!


	6. Relatives

Authors note: Okay… I admit this chapter is long long overdue but I have been working on multiple fics alongside each other as well as a new metaverse, a website and my school work so everything is taking quite a while to complete. I can tell you there will be more chapters to this story and I will try to get them out semi regular but no promises I'm afraid. As always read and review please.

Dr Wesker turned away from the observation window that overlooked the silo and walked over to the administrator who stood on the opposite side of the room with his suit and brief case.

"They are impressive specimens" Dr Wesker grudgingly admitted as he crossed his arms across his chest and looked at the administrator through black sunglasses "Although they appear to have gone missing" he pointed out referring to their escape through a Xen portal.

"A temporal problem I assure you" hissed out the administrator "one which will be rectified shortly"

Both men were calmly ignoring the explosions and insane cries of the thrashing leviathan beneath them despite the fact the silo was falling apart around them, the two men remained staring at each other even as a large slab of the ceiling came crashing down near them, destroying a table and showering them both in dust, though neither even blinked at this.

"You would consider the projects a success despite the early set backs both series suffered?" asked Wesker brushing dust from his shoulders.

The administrator pressed his lips together displeased "Every project suffers initial set backs and we shall have to wait to see if they are as successful as we had hoped"

"I find it interesting that XH-013 retains enough intelligence to converse and rename itself" Wesker mused out aloud as he began walking out of the silo.

"Indeed" Replied the administrator straightening his tie "It would appear we have underestimated the level of intelligence the XH project would retain and this also raises the concern that the rest of the series may have similar mental abilities"

Wesker turned to fact the administrator "Does this change anything?"

The administrator shook his head "It does not matter. The plan will proceed as normal." He stated unconcerned as he began walking out the collapsing silo with Wesker.

"Who's next?" asked Wesker as he walked calmly down the corridor away from the silo.

"A corporal Shepard, he has been indicated to have potential" The administrator said disinterestedly as he disappeared down the corridor.

The silo collapsed about five seconds later crushing the leviathan to death, letting its unnatural cries ring out one last time before being silenced forever as a deathly silence took over the ruined silo broken, a silence only broken by the occasional piece of rumble shifting.

* * *

Gemini moaned blissfully as she sank into the blue sparkling pool before she let herself be submerged completely, sinking under the alien pool as she fully embracing the tingling sensation it produced.

Karen watched Gemini sink beneath the pool unconcerned at first but as she stayed under the liquid for longer Karen lunged forward as if to pull her out but snatched her hand back at the sudden tingling in her injured hand, looking at her hand incredulously she watched as the acid burns slowly began to heal before her eyes, she had no more time to study that as Gemini suddenly emerged from under the water, grabbed her and then pulled Karen into the pool with her.

Spluttering Karen broke the surface of the pool and glared soggily at the grinning hybrid who seemed suddenly completely uninjured once again whilst trying to ignore the disturbing tingling that spread throughout her body. "What the hell is this stuff?" Karen demanded.

Gemini cocked her head "It's a healing pool, it accelerates the body's natural healing abilities, see" Gemini pointed to herself "I'm healed instantly whilst you are healing much more slowly" she said pointing to the healing red marks across Karen's stomach.

Karen touched the marks which were little more than an hour or two ago had been nasty claw marks inflicted by Gemini, now the skin was red and tender but was noticeably healing, given a few more minutes and the injury would be completely gone as if it had never existed in the first place. A relief because then she'd be back on top fighting form and not have to worry about aggravating the injury on her stomach.

Karen sighed and leaned back further into the pool letting it do its healing magic whilst Gemini climbed out of the pool and then slammed her still dislocated shoulder against the nearest pillar of bone several times until with a seriously unpleasant click of something that sounded between plastic and metal Gemini's arm realigned itself and she with a yelp of pain stumbled backwards, ending up in the pool again with a splash. Gemini sighed this time as the pool sent a refreshing cool through her shoulder, numbing the pain and repairing the damaged caused by putting her joint back in, Karen looked over envious at Gemini's healing abilities, still the pool had healed her injuries so she climbed out as she was unwilling to spend more time than necessary in a strange alien pool which was doing god knows what to her body. Karen made a disgusted gesture at her soaking wet demure but had to give it that she would dry quickly under twin suns, the liquid looked colourless in little amounts so she doubted it would stain her skin blue although it seemed she ran a strong risk of smelling like a peppermint for the foreseeable future.

Gemini shook herself dry as best as she could do as she got out of the pool, showering Karen with more liquid and in reply Karen gave Gemini a killer glare whilst trying to wring out her red hair.

"So where are the hordes of evil monsters?" asked Karen curiously still wringing out her hair, so far Xen hadn't seemed that bad and they had enjoyed a 10 minute walk/stagger followed by a refreshing bath/drowning.

Gemini looked around puzzled, her infra red vision picking up various creatures scattered about in the shadows but nothing large or dangerous. "There should be more" Gemini told Karen puzzled "Although it may be that the portals we came through teleported all the Xen creatures in the area back to earth"

Karen looked curiously at Gemini "What makes you think that?" she asked.

"That" Gemini answered nodding over to one of the islands where her unique vision showed the cooling body of a human although she couldn't make out any other features to distinguish it.

Karen followed Gemini's eyes and she suffered none of the limitations of Gemini's eyesight, easily picking out the tattered white coat and general appearance that screamed scientist. Karen's eyes were modified for sniper work without a scope and general gun work, therefore were sharper than an eagles allowing her to see across the distance despite the large distance between them and the island.

"Poor sod" Karen turned away from the body which she guessed had fallen to its death

"What was he?" Gemini asked and at Karen's confused look she clarified "A scientist, a security guard or a soldier?"

Karen blinked "Cant you tell?" She asked curious and still confused, Gemini seemed powerful in so many ways… strength, healing, speed and Karen therefore doubted the military would give her defective eyesight.

Gemini shook her head "My eyes are designed to see heat and track moving targets" she explained "Its hard to focus on stationary targets, I'm designed to hunt down living prey"

Karen noted that away for future reference "Oh" she said thinking before answering Gemini's question "a scientist" she told Gemini

Gemini thought about this "The portal must have a wider area than the silo" she said to Karen "There wasn't another human near the silo especially not a scientist"

Karen looked at Gemini "you sure?" she asked

Gemini nodded "Trust me, I know" she answered with absolute certainty.

* * *

Dr Matthews held her gun up as she neared the corner, Sherry moved nervously into a defensive position a little further behind her and waited, something was making a considerable racket in the room they stood outside of.

They had stumbled into this warehouse after an encounter with a group of alien slaves fortunately the military had decided that they hated the aliens more and engaged them allowing both Sherry and Dr Matthews to escape in the ensuring confusion. The warehouse seemed mostly dedicated to medical and pharmaceutical supplies, several of the rooms had been torn apart by what Dr Matthews thought was someone searching for something, the destruction just didn't seem random and it was only the packaging crates that had been torn apart, the actual medicines and equipment had been left intact although quite a lot of packaging lay strewn across the floor.

Taking a deep breath Dr Matthews spun around the corner with her gun out and she was confronted by a most unexpected sight, there with her head buried in the top of a crate and lethal tail swinging slowly side to side was one of the Xenomorph hybrids, XH-011, Dr Matthews identified knowing instantly which one it was, its height combined with its tail and lack of 'extra' chitin meant that it couldn't have been Gemini, the twins or XH-009.

Sherry came in behind Dr Matthews and gasped, the hybrid spun instantly on the noise dropping down to all fours with its tail sticking out straight behind it only swaying very little as it face them side on, looking freakily like a black panther from its pose, the hybrids eyes darted from Dr Matthews to Sherry to their weapons to the door undecided in its fight or flight response. Exposing your flank to a possible attacker may had seemed strange but from studying these creatures Dr Matthews knew they could move and turn in the blink of an eye, the side on position allowed them to bring all their natural weapons into play easily, tooth, claw and scything tail.

Dr Matthews caught the flash of something in one of the hybrids hands, it was the tell tale shape of one of the disposable injectors that they used, the hybrid noticing where Dr Matthews was directing her attention growled sub vocally curling its body slightly, although it barely moved through experience Dr Matthews could see the signs of the creature tensing ready for a fight and tightened her grip on her gun.

"She looks just like Gemini" Blurted out Sherry suddenly and out of the blue.

The hybrid actually blinked, an uncertain expression coming across its face as it flickered its gaze between the two females, re-evaluating them before it finally made its decision on which course of action to take and made its move. Without warning the hybrid suddenly leapt at Sherry who was standing behind Dr Matthews still and before either could respond it had swiped its tail into Dr Matthews stomach as it flew past her, sending her crashing into a wall before landing on Sherry which sent her crashing down to the ground with absolutely bruising force. Not even pausing after its sudden attack the hybrid leapt off Sherry and disappeared down the corridor into the depths of Black Mesa.

Sherry groaned as she pushed herself back up "That wasn't very friendly" She said pointedly.

Dr Matthews chuckled painfully from her place on the floor "If it was friendly we'd be in pieces on the floor by now" She told the girl before crying out in pain as she tried to stand up.

Sherry rushed to Dr Matthews side where she'd slide down to the floor breathing heavily, trying to suppress the pain, pulling up the bottom of Dr Matthews top carefully Sherry winced as a large vicious bruising was beginning to make itself visible and was turning purple already.

"Shit" Sherry muttered as she looked over the injury.

"I think I broke some ribs too…" Dr Matthews told her wincing as she checked her ribs, wincing heavily when she hit a particularly sore spot "Yep… definitely broken"

"What can I do?" Sherry asked concerned

"Help me up" Dr Matthews told her and Sherry did with a lot of pain filled hisses later, Dr Matthews looked the room over. "Over there, theres pain killers and over there, bandages" She informed Sherry pointing to two separate piles of medicines, syringes and bandages "Get them"

Once she had the bandages Dr Matthews bound up her broken ribs as best she could considering and went as sparingly as she dared on the pain killers, she would need to be as aware as possible and not drugged up if she was to survive this place. Having done that the two proceeded further through the Black Mesa complex with the overall goal of getting reunited with their companions and escaping.

* * *

Gemini and Karen gazed down at the canyon and at the fast flowing green river at the bottom of it, Karen took a step away from the edge and sat down heavily.

"That's a drop" Karen stated, it had been nearly 150 foot to the bottom.

Gemini turned to Karen and sat down besides her, curling her legs under her "yes" she agreed.

"And that water had piranha's in it" Karen stated again, they had just watched a bullsquid scavenging for food fell into the water and was stripped down to the bone in seconds, the bones didn't last too long either and this gave the pair the idea that the water was not swimmer friendly.

"Yes" Gemini answered once again, agreeing with Karen.

Karen thought about this "So why exactly do we want to go down there?" she asked simply with a tone of confusion clear in her voice.

"Because it's safer" Gemini informed her.

Karen nodded, not actually because she understood just because it seemed like the thing to do. "Why?" She asked simply again, this time stressing the why.

"Those swimming piranhas are not much danger to us unless we fall in but I doubt we'd do so well against the flying ones" Gemini explained, confused that Karen didn't instantly understand.

Karen scanned the horizon "Flying piranhas?" She asked doubtfully

Gemini nodded "Nasty" she explained.

Karen sighed, that was probably the best she was going to get out of Gemini and to be quite honest she didn't want to know. "It's your world, claw girl" She said giving in.

Gemini uncurled her legs and stood up in one smooth sleek motion before walking over to the edge of the canyon that overlooked the river, she waited for Karen to struggle to her feet and catch up before continuing by climbing down the rock face with surprising ease, claws transforming into instant natural climbing gear.

As Karen stumbled down the rocky face she asked down "Why haven't we encountered those flying piranhas yet?"

"Maybe the portal, maybe the scent hasn't carried on the wind. I would be happy that we haven't see them yet" Gemini advised as she went down the side of the rock face with such a lack of effort that made Karen totally envious.

Karen checked her footing was secure against the rock before she shifted her hands into a next handhold in the rock; she winced and pulled her hand away as it cut on something very sharp. "Shit" she muttered as she checked her cut palm for damage, she then felt carefully around in the handhold for what had cut her, intent on not making the same mistake twice and with a little pulling managed to dislodge a rather sharp and orange glowing crystal.

She shifted the crystal around in her hand numerous ways, looking at the strange object from a number of different angles trying to get a good look at it. "Hey Gem, what is this?" Karen asked down to her hybrid companion who was quite a bit below her.

Gemini looked up at the piece of crystal that Karen held in her hand, the crystal had a very strange heat signature for what it was and was instantly recognisable to her as common if unique crystal to Xen that glowed when warmed, her Xen side's memories coming out strong and fast now it was in its native environment. "It's a simple glow crystal, its harmless" Gemini dismissed it before continuing her own way down the rock face, something down there was clawing at her consciousness but felt just out of reach.

Karen shifted the crystal curiously around in her hand a few more times before stuffing it into her pocket and then continued to climb down the rock face slightly more carefully, trying not to cut her hand open again as she proceeded down to where Gemini had stopped on a ledge further down and was giving the entrance to a rather small and cramped looking cave a rather intense look of concentration.

Gemini gazed cautiously into the small cave, she could feel something in there, something which was pulling at her and urging her to come to it, the feeling was akin to that of her siblings yet felt different, strange, changed all at the same time. Her instincts were at war with themselves once again, Predator Vs Prey, Xen Vs Human, the predator side of herself recognised whatever was lurking in those caves and welcomed it, whilst her human side recognised its predatory intent and wanted nothing to do with it, Gemini was forced into a stalemate of instincts clashing against each other leaving her completely unsure as what course of action to take.

Karen noticed Gemini standing still staring at the cave as she finally managed to get down to the ledge that Gemini was on. "What's up?" She asked "why are you staring at a….Woah!"

Karen took a step back from the cave entrance as she noticed the edges of the cave wall were rounded and had a strange ribbed biomechanical look to them which looked like something straight out of a sci-fi horror movie, the whole cave seemed to radiate menace and danger to her, staring at the cave seemed to drag you in almost as if it was physically pulling you in. Karen shook her head clearing her head of the caves pull "I don't like this.." She told Gemini, who paid about zero attention as she began swaying her head from side to side as if she was listening/looking for something in the depths of the cave.

"Gemini…" Karen began worriedly for which she had cause as Gemini suddenly started walking into the cave without word or warning.

"Where the hell are you going?!" Karen asked in disbelief as she saw Gemini head into the rather worrying cave, Gemini didn't answer her and seemed to be focusing almost her entire attention on what lay within the cave with almost terrifying level of concentration.

Seeing that Gemini wasn't going to respond and was determined to continue into the cave, Karen swore, the very last thing she wanted to do was enter that cave which obviously had something alive down there and knowing this place it was carnivorous too, as Gemini got farther into the cave Karen looked around, swearing again before chasing after Gemini. This world was completely alien to Karen in every single way and without Gemini's knowledge sooner or latter she would get herself killed, as she caught up to Gemini she stuck firmly to her side and began hoping that this wasn't all a big mistake as the cave became darker along with the air becoming increasingly hot and humid. It eventually became so dark that Karen had to grab hold of Gemini's shoulder in order to avoid stumbling around blind in the total darkness, she became rapidly glad of Gemini's infra red vision which allowed at least one of them to see where they were going although she was exceedingly uneasy about why Gemini was heading into this cave but didn't say anything out aloud, somehow that would be wrong almost as if it would disturb something that should not be disturbed and so she kept silent.

Karen ran that last mental sentence through her head and marvelled at how little sense that made.

As they progressed through the pure and absolute pitch black of the cave Karen got an ominous sense of tingling down her spine as she sensed something shift in the darkness, that same sixth sense that some black ops soldiers gained after many years of missions and training, the very sense that told them that the passage ahead was an enemy ambush even when there was no proof that it was. Gemini suddenly came to a stop in front of her and Karen had to struggle not to trip over her much shorter companion, she could tell something was up in the surrounding area as Gemini's shoulder suddenly tensed and she became very still under Karen's hand. Karen stilled herself, trying to lighten out her breathing as much as absolutely possible as she strained to hear anything out of the darkness, there was absolute silence and she couldn't even hear the sound of Gemini breathing, although her companion moved totally silent most of the time except when she talked.

Finally after several long minutes the waiting in absolute darkness with her heart trying to pound its way out of her chest, Karen reached into her pocket and deciding against listening to that part of her brain which said 'No, you do NOT want to know what is out there', she pulled the glowing piece of crystal out her pocket. The crystals faint glow lit the surrounding few meters or so, dimly bathing everything in an eerie orange half light in which shadows danced and shifted of their own will, it was far from the best light to illuminate the area with but at least it allowed Karen to see. Briefly she wondered why she hadn't tried it before and chided herself for getting caught up in the atmosphere of the situation. Looking around Karen took in the her bizarre and definitely terrifying surroundings, the orange light from crystal flickered across the ribbed cave walls giving the impression that they were closing in on you, the shadows of the ribs also looked like they hide untold monsters from your worst nightmares and the air was thick, heavy almost to the point you could see it. Karen wiped sweat from her face and looked at her companion who looked more inhuman that normal under the strange light, she was looking into the darkness beyond the light with a guarded cautious look and was tense like a panther about to pounce. Karen caught something flicker in the corner of her eye and spun around to face it, staring intently into the darkness behind them, remaining on edge for several moments until she slowly began to relax almost dismissing it as nothing but her imagination, when the darkness suddenly shifted.

Karen's heart froze as the darkness with deliberate and graceful control crept forward into the half light of the crystal, which shone off sleek black exoskeleton, biomechanical pipes and a scything tail to reveal something that was most definitely related to Gemini, though they looked radically different from each other besides a few traits, they both had the same predatory intent and aura to one another.

Gemini herself stood still, idly watching with a detracted curiosity as more of the dark creatures emerged out of the shadows encircling them; they stayed at the very edge of the light so they were barely visible to Karen, something she was sure they were doing deliberately despite the fact their monstrous heads appeared to have no eyes.

Gemini cocked her head slowly and curiously at her Xen cousins before her, trying to decide what to make of them and their intents, the scent, appearance and movement of the creatures convinced her that they were definitely related in someway, she was unsure how because she had yet to work out exactly how the human scientists had created her and her siblings but they were definitely related. The pure blooded Xenomorph drones were struck with a similar problem as Gemini; before them were two creatures that were similar to a prey species that the hive had encountered before, normally any prey that entered so foolishly into their hive would become instant food once it passed the sentries, perhaps even before then however what had stopped the drones from ambushing and killing this pair was that the shorter creature had hive mate smell. The taller one also had a strange smell for one of its species but that was nowhere as interesting as the smaller ones scent.

The air was thick with telepathic energy as the drones communicated amongst one another and back to their queen who resided deep in the hive watching the entire scene unfold with curiosity of her own, equally unsure as how to react to this completely new element that had entered her hive. The queen with her mind reached out with her mind and brushed against the shorter creatures mind in an attempt to learn more about it, the smaller creature recoiled slightly at the mental intrusion as the queens powerful mind scanned its own, even lightly scanning the queens mind had quite a tremendous force behind it.

Gemini flinched and rocked slightly as he mind was hit with a very powerful alien mind which scanned with vicious force through her memories, she was used to having people enter and leave her mind from her time with her siblings, amongst them you could mentally come or go as you wished in someone's mind but the queens mind had caught her off guard and was stronger than everyone's besides Naomi's mental touch. The alien mind travelled quickly through Gemini's mind gaining a brief summary of Gemini's life before it pulled out and faded back into the depths of the cave from whence it came, Gemini licked her lips and shook her head to clear it off the last of the alien's presence as she began to recover from the shock of the sudden mental intrusion.

Karen noticed Gemini's sudden flinch and nervously began reaching for her pistol with her space hand almost out of instinct, the creatures surrounding them hissed and shifted in agitation as they noticed Karen's hand reaching for a weapon, obviously having had experience with human weaponry.

Gemini noticed her cousin's sudden agitation of her pure-blooded cousins and said quietly but clearly. "No weapons"

Karen froze at the first real sound for almost 20 minutes beside her own breathing and the hissing from the black chitin creatures that surrounded them, nodding she moved her hand hesitantly away from her pistol as she decided to trust Gemini given the circumstances, almost immediately the drones surrounding them calmed somewhat although they remained twitchy awaiting instructions from the queen.

Whilst the queen review the jumbled mess of thoughts and images that she had gained from Gemini's mind and Karen not about to provoke the drones to attack them, Gemini did some scanning of her own across the minds of the drones surrounding her. They reacted with curiosity and confusion to her scan, their minds working in seemingly alien patterns giving Gemini completely chaotic and random images to try to make sense out of.

Gemini didn't have much time to make sense of the images as the drones all suddenly stopped moving and snapped to attention, the queen had made her decision with what to do with the intruders.


End file.
